The Maid and the Mortician
by PrisonerPadfoot
Summary: A year after Ciel's death and Sebastian's disappearance, Maylene finds herself working for the Undertaker and developing a rather strange relationship with him. AU taking place after the end of the manga/anime. Irregularly updated drabble collection.
1. Sleeping in Coffins

**Written for kurohedonism on livejournal. Originally posted June 30th, 2010. Going to warn you that this is probably not going to have any sort of plot. Basically it's just little flashes of Undertaker and Maylene's life together.  
**

* * *

A nightmare woke her, a dream that she could hardly remember upon waking. She remembered vague flashes of the young master and Mister Sebastian, but that was all. In the beginning these nightmares had kept her awake whole nights, but now it was drawing on a year since the young master had died and Mister Sebastian had disappeared. Almost a year since she had retired her maid's outfit to become an undertaker's apprentice.

Maylene threw off the blankets and stretched, finding herself alone in the room. It wasn't unusual for her to wake and find that her bedmate wasn't beside her. He often expressed his distaste for the bed they shared, preferring instead the soft linings of the coffins he so meticulously crafted. Many times she had joined him in sleeping in one, and despite their narrowness they served very well for activities other than sleeping…

Maylene put on her glasses and crept down the stairs, trying to fight the heat rising into her cheeks.

He was right where she expected him to be, laying in his favorite coffin and wearing the oversized nightshirt he had gone to bed in. She knelt beside the coffin and tried to rouse him. He didn't respond, and she realized he wasn't breathing.

Believing herself mistaken, she placed her hand on his chest only to find it completely still. She was on the verge of screaming when his hand closed around hers.

"Come to say good morning, my dear?" the Undertaker said, his face splitting in a smile.

"You-you-weren't breathing!" she gasped, and the Undertaker laughed.

"Now why would I need to do that?" he said between giggles.

Maylene's eyes widened for a moment, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose.

"I keep forgetting you're not human," she sighed. She moved to fix her glasses, but before she could he had gently removed them and laid them down beside the coffin.

"Not exactly," he tittered, sitting up. "You, however, are quite mortal," he said and laid his head and hand upon her chest, listening to the beat of her heart and feeling the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. His thumbnail brushed against her nipple and sent a chill down her spine.

She shivered as a long nail was traced along her jaw. Those long nails drew her into a kiss, chaste at first but growing in intensity as he gently teased her lips apart. When he pulled away from her, she was surprised to find her hands knotted so thoroughly in his hair.

He ran his cool palm over her flushed cheek and placed a hand at the small of her back, pulling her just a bit closer.

"The morning is still young. Perhaps my dear lady would like to take this opportunity to sleep for awhile longer?" he laughed and kissed her again.

Maylene smiled, her face nearly as red as her hair as she climbed into the coffin with him. Despite it's rather nightmarish beginning, the morning ended on a very pleasurable note.


	2. A Letter from Paris

**Written for kurohedonism on livejournal. Originally posted July 18th, 2010. Going to warn you (again) that this is probably not going to have any sort of plot. Basically it's just little flashes of Undertaker and Maylene's life together.  
**

* * *

He found it rather amusing that something so simple as a letter from a friend could have her trembling so, while the sight of the countless corpses that came in and out of the shop barely phased her. Usually the living kin of his customers couldn't stand to be in his shop for more than few minutes before he could see the desire to run out into the street upon their sweating brows. And it wasn't just the occupied caskets that scared them, he was quite aware.

This one, however, didn't seem to mind being so closely associated with Death. She even shared a bed, or often times a coffin, with it. It seemed she didn't mind the darkness as long as it stayed far away from those she held dear. She realized that there was no horror in a corpse. The real horror came from all the memories of the dead that the living carried around with them. He supposed that insight was partly why he had never revealed to her the nature of her former master's contract to the demon. That, and she never had thought to ask him. Or perhaps she didn't want to.

It was also one of the reasons why he found her quite the treat to have around the shop. She was strangely amusing in her bouts of clumsiness and she didn't find death to be particularly unsettling, but there were other things that easily brought that lovely rose color in her cheeks…

Smiling slightly, he rose from tending to his latest customer and went to stand behind her. She didn't seem to notice him looming over her shoulder until one of his hands curled upon her shoulder, the other wrapping around her middle and gently pulling her flush against him. She was trembling ever so slightly, and the cool rush of his breath upon her neck made her shiver.

"A letter from a friend, my dear?" he asked.

Maylene nodded, and there was a slight waver to her voice as she spoke. "Bard is working at a restaurant in Paris now. He hasn't even burnt the place down yet," she laughed weakly. "And Finny is visiting him from the country…He's been working at a winery, you know. Bard says he loves it there."

She suddenly turned around in his arms, and the letter from the former Phantomhive chef was crushed between them. "I miss them…"

She rested her glasses atop her head and used his robes to dry her eyes. She also didn't seem to mind the smell of formaldehyde.


	3. Glasses

**Originally posted November 23rd, 2010. Going to warn you (again) that this is probably not going to have any sort of plot. Basically it's just little flashes of Undertaker and Maylene's life together.**

* * *

The Undertaker frowned down at the jar in his hand, then back up at the cracked pair of glasses looking down at him. He had specially asked her to bring him the bottle of formaldehyde, yet the jar she had handed him was clearly labeled "Tea Leaves". Honestly, this was never going to do.

He rose from his seat and went to her, reaching out to remove her of those ridiculous glasses. She skittered away from him, backing herself up against a stack of unfinished coffins.

"What are you doing?" Maylene stuttered.

The Undertaker smiled and began rummaging through the mess of items on his shelves. Jars of various fluids, beakers covered with an ugly white film…Everything but what he was looking for. It had been so long since he had needed them, or even thought about them, that they were probably at the very back of the cabinet.

"I think it's time you said your goodbyes to those glasses of yours," he said.

"But-but-" she stammered, holding her glasses to her face. "These were a gift from the Young Master! "

The Undertaker pushed aside another jar of tea leaves and there they were, just where he had left them so many years ago. They were covered in such a thick layer of dust that they were almost unrecognizable. He blew a gentle breath across them then wiped them on his robes to clean them off.

"A gift from the Earl, eh?" the Undertaker smiled. As he approached her she turned her face away from him. "Well then, it's understandable you would want to keep them. But the Earl is dead," he said, and Maylene's eyes wandered up to his face.

Her hands fell to her sides as he held the pair of glasses out to her. They were a delicate pair with a light, silver frame and square lenses. They had served him well for over three-hundred years. He had seen blood and war and countless deaths through these lenses, yet they had never broken. Glasses were essential to the working Death God, and if they were made strong enough to last through his time detailing the French Revolution, he was certain that they would be able to last through Maylene's bouts of clumsiness.

"The Earl is dead and you are still alive," the Undertaker said. "Isn't it a shame that you can't see what is right in front of you?"

Maylene took the glasses from him and he smiled, turning away and going back to his work.

"Thank you," Maylene said, turning the pair over in her hands.

Not to his surprise, she dropped his glasses gently into the pocket of her apron and went back to cleaning the shop, still wearing the broken pair the Earl had given her.


	4. Extreme Makeover

She was really starting to get tired of this. Now matter how much she cleaned, and cleaned, and _cleaned_, nothing in this shop ever seemed to get any less dusty. It seemed that whenever she pulled one cobweb down, another one would immediately pop up in its place. She was also starting to get the feeling that Undertaker kept his shop dirty on purpose. Whether to drive her crazy or because he liked it that way, she wasn't quite sure yet. Perhaps both.

Maylene sighed and cleaned her glasses on her apron, the same glasses her former Master had given her so many years ago. They were broken now and quite useless, but she simply couldn't part with them. The new glasses Undertaker had given her were still sitting up in her bureau, never worn.

She put her glasses back on, and found she could see even less than she could before. Her apron was so dirty that she had coated her lenses in a film of dust.

"Blimey," she said, and took them off again.

At that moment, the door to shop burst open, and Maylene screamed in surprise, falling backwards and into the Undertaker's chair. Without her glasses on, the figure standing in the doorway was nothing more than a very big, very red, blur.

"Oh Undertaker dear, I've come for a visit! Where are you, darling?" the figure sang, and Maylene hurried to clean her glasses off on her dress so she could see the fellow.

She almost couldn't believe what she was seeing. Such long red hair, and such wicked teeth smiling at her. And he was wearing his coat so strangely, down on his elbows as though it didn't fit him quite right. She thought she recognized that coat from somewhere, as if she had seen someone else wearing it before….but couldn't quite out her finger on it.

"I-I'm sorry, but the U-Undertaker's out in the cemetery at the moment, S-Sir," Maylene stuttered. This guy was sort of giving her the creeps.

Her strange guest's smile faded, and he came to stand over her, placing his hands on the arms of her chair and leaning down so they were nearly nose to nose. Maylene turned her face away from him.

"Oh he is, is he?" the stranger asked. "And who might you be?"

"Maylene," she replied. "I work for him. I'm his maid."

Truth be told, she was a little bit more than his maid these days, but she didn't feel elaborating on the subject. She got the impossible feeling that his guy knew that their relationship was not simple. His eyes narrowed and his lips pursed.

"I remember you," the stranger said, and Maylene was taken a bit aback. She had never met this gentleman before in her life. Certainly she would have remember someone like him. "You were little Ciel's maid."

Maylene finally turned to look her visitor in the eye. She saw the rings of green and gold in his eye, and she knew just how the Undertaker knew such an odd fellow.

"You're a Reaper," she said, and the stranger looked a bit surprised at her revelation. He laughed and danced away from her, coming to sit rather daintily on a nearby coffin, his legs crossed.

"Why yes!" he said. "So, you know dear Undertaker used to be a God of Death, do you?" he asked, and Maylene nodded. "Well then! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Reaper Grell Sutcliff from the Soul Retrieval Branch of the London Division."

"Grell Sutcliff!" she yelled, then clamped her hand over her mouth. She shook her head. It was impossible. There was no way the Grell she had known such a long time ago and this person could be one in the same. "But I used to know a Grell Sutcliff-he was Madam Red's butler-"

"Oh dear, that was such a very long time ago! Don't remind me of that awful disguise I used to wear. And speaking of awful, look at the condition of those clothes you're wearing," he said, and clicked his tongue in disapproval.

"Sir-?" Maylene squeaked. Honestly, she had no idea what to say or what was going on.

"Well, that's rude of you. Do you call every lady you meet 'Sir?'" the Reaper scolded, and Maylene cocked her head as he crossed his arms and tapped his foot, seemingly waiting for her to say something.

"Ma'am-?"

"That's better," Grell said, and Maylene jumped out of her seat as Grell moved to pull something out of her jacket pocket. She produced a small tube of lipstick and an equally small pair of red scissors, much to Maylene's confusion. "Honestly, don't you put any time into yourself at all? We'll have to fix that!"

"What do you mean?" Maylene asked nervously. She backed herself up against the cabinet, making the many vials and beakers clatter and click together on the shelves. An urn full of the Undertaker's bone-shaped cookies fell to the floor and shattered.

"Oh relax dear, this won't hurt a bit," Grell said, and Maylene didn't like the crazy gleam in her eye, and especially not her crazy smile as she approached, lipstick in one hand and scissor in the other.

* * *

The Undertaker swung his shovel over his shoulder and stood admiring his work for a moment. There really was nothing like a job well done, like a grave well-dug. He almost liked digging graves as much as he liked crafting coffins, a task he would got on just as soon as he got back to the shop. There were still so many coffin linings laying around the shop, just waiting to be sewn.

He walked the little way to the cemetery and back to his shop, humming a pleasant little funeral march to himself. As he turned the corner, he saw a very familiar someone peeking into the window of his shop.

"Mr. Knox," the Undertaker laughed. Ronald peeled his eyes away from the window, then smiled and ran the rest of the way to the Undertaker.

"Undertaker, Sir! What's up? How are you?" Ronald asked.

The Undertaker giggled at him. "What brings you to my shop?"

Ronald's friendly expression changed drastically. His smile faded and he ran a hand through his hair, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.

"Well, Grell and I were on an assignment together, but she seems to have disappeared on me…again," he sighed. "I figured she might have gone off to visit you."

The Undertaker nodded. He for one understood quite well how exasperating it could be to deal with Sutcliff at times. He was about to express his sympathies for Ronald predicament when there arose a clatter and a very loud, shrill scream from inside the shop. Ronald groaned and the Undertaker shook his head.

"Seems you were right," the Undertaker said.

They entered the shop together, only to be greeted by Grell sitting on the top of an unfinished coffin. The Undertaker could tell that something was amiss almost immediately. There were strips of black lining all across the floor, and it seemed as though his maid had abandoned her clothing and hung it over the back of his favorite chair. Either she was running around the shop naked, or Grell's odd little grin was hiding something.

"Undertaker dear, how lovely to see you!" Grell cooed. "I have a surprise for you!"

"Oh really?" the Undertaker laughed, "And what would that be?"

Grell rose from the coffin and pulled open the lid, and out popped Maylene, looking rather distraught, and yet quite dazzling. Her hair was pulled out of its usual pigtails and done into bouncy ringlets that fell all down her back. Her lips were painted red, and she was wearing a floor length black gown. The Undertaker kneeled down and felt its hem, realizing that it had been crafted out of his unfinished coffin linings. He frowned a bit as he stood, but his smile quickly came back. Even through all that, Grell still hadn't been able to take Maylene's old glasses away.

"Doesn't she look lovely?" Grell chirped. She scowled as Ronald wormed his way between her and Maylene. "Hey!"

"Hey babe, remember me?" Ronald said, propping his foot up on the coffin and cozying up to her. Maylene most certainly did remember him as that smooth-talker from the Campania, and she edged ever so slightly away from him, a blush rising in her cheeks. "Hey Undertaker, why didn't you tell me you had such a pretty assistant?"

Maylene backed herself into the Undertaker's embrace, feeling much more comfortable in the arms of the weirdo she knew than the two she didn't. The Undertaker pulled up a lock of her hair and brought it close to his face, frowning.

"Oh, you've taken the cobwebs out of her hair," he lamented. "What a shame. They went no nicely with the pale color of her skin."

Grell stomped her foot and balled her hands into fists, looking about ready to have a temper tantrum. "What do mean 'what a shame'? Are you insulting my work? And you-!" she said, turning to Ronald and poking him in the chest. "How dare you push past me like that-!"

"Hey wait a second-" said Ronald, but failed to get a word in edgewise.

Maylene managed to worm her way out of the Undertaker's arms without him noticing. Taking her old clothes with her, she tiptoed upstairs and away from the bickering Reapers, wondering if it was requirement that all Death Gods should have a few screws loose in their heads.


End file.
